Lawmakers Warn of Unintended Consequences of USF Reform to Native, Rural Communities
Senate Indian Affairs Committee members urged FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to consider how proposed reforms of the Universal Service Fund could negatively affect rural and native communities, during a hearing Thursday. In particular, lawmakers took issue with the hurdles and cost of the FCC’s waiver process for telecommunications companies that cannot adjust to the USF reforms.
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Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, was concerned that the FCC’s USF reforms “will have disproportionate and potentially dangerous impacts on native communities. … It is absolutely necessary that the federal government honor its unique relationship with native communities across the U.S. and ensure that these companies that provide broadband do not have to shut their doors.”
Indian country has a “long way to catch up” with the rest of the country in terms of broadband access, said Committee Vice Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo. He asked what the commission will do to assist telcos who aim to deliver broadband to native communities. Clyburn touted the commission’s engagement with the Office of Native Affairs and Policy as a way to work “hand in hand” with native communities. Clyburn added that $50 million of the FCC’s mobility fund is designated to the delivery of service to tribal lands.
Barrasso called the FCC waiver process “burdensome and costly” and asked what happens if the commission’s flawed data is not corrected. Clyburn said the commission has narrowed the requirements of the waiver application and made sure that the majority of the information the commission needs from telcos is within generally accepted accounting practices. “It is not going to be the most comfortable process, I admit that. But we do have an agency if things are too uncomfortable and burdensome … to make that process easier.”
The cost of a waiver application fee is $8,000, which goes “straight to the U.S. Treasury,” Clyburn said. But Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the total predicted cost is actually somewhere between $100,000 and $180,000. “For some of our smaller operations up North that is a pretty substantial load for them.”
The commission’s office door is open to engagement, Clyburn told lawmakers. The FCC is “in the business” to address concerns of native and rural telephone cooperatives, she said. “If we are deficient in any way we will address that.” But the promise of an open door “is not giving much comfort” to small telcos that are “feeling like they are on the ropes,” Murkowski said.